ch 14, The Final Battle

"Shield up, shield up, shield up!" Rebecca screamed as she raced down a corridor. She was bleeding profusely from her shoulder where Gannondorf had cut her and she was still gasping from when Linnet had nearly strangled her to death with her magic. She only just got away with a series of fire spells and a sweet shot with a mystery seed right in Linnet's face.

Rebecca had chosen the first door she had seen and was now racing away from the main hall. She didn't need to turn around to know she was being chased. The voice piped up Look, I can help heal your arm, but that means I'll be busy for a while. You might not feel as strong as you usually are, so you should hide.

"Hide, right, where" she panted. She had come to some spiral stairs leading downward. There was no way she could hide on those, except… the stairway had sconces on the wall for holding torches, and the walls were pretty close together…

--

"She came this way" She heard Linnet say as they came down the corridor "She can't have gotten far."

"Hmm, she actually thinks she could escape us?" Gannondorf shook his head "Foolish as well as spineless." Rebecca shifted angrily in her hiding place. We'll just see, evil bastard.

"She's trapped anyway. The holding cell door is impenetrable, I made sure of that." They began walking down the stairs. They turned a corner and were out of sight

Holding cells… Jackpot! This corridor led to where the sages were being held! Only, now there were going to be two powerful bad guys down there as well as an 'impenetrable' door. How was she going to get to them now?

Suddenly, she heard Linnet's voice echo up the stairs. "That's strange" she murmured "I sense her being farther away now. She didn't come down these stairs."

Oh fuck! The footsteps were coming back up the stairs! She didn't know Linnet had Rebecca radar! Being up in her hiding place was beginning to strain her arm and legs, and the angle she was at, they'd be sure to see-

They turned the corner on the stairs and froze, seeing Rebecca suspended in mid-air. Her feet were wrapped around one high sconce in the wall and her arms wrapped around the sconce across from it.

"Fancy meeting you here!" Rebecca said brightly. She let go of the walls just as Gannondorf threw his sword at her. She landed with a thud and began to roll down the stairs before she could stop herself. Linnet levitated herself and Gannondorf out of the way before they were tripped and Rebecca continued her descent down the stairs, picking up more speed. They heard her swearing all the way down.

"Certainly not Link." Linnet said with a smirk

"Not a bit" agreed Gannondorf.

--

O.K., he was awake again.

Zedar had just formulated an escape plan when Sorion came back in and drugged him again. He pressed his face up to the edge of the bubble to see who was in the room. All he could see was two shadowy figures across the room and hear a muffled cheering.

He'll have to deal with them. They had taken all of his charms that were hidden in the obvious places, around his neck, in his pockets, in his boots… luckily he had some in not so obvious places.

He felt the edge of his tunic. The long soak and made the thread in his clothes weak. He ripped the hem open and grabbed the braided gold necklace that was in there. He reached for the back of his knee. He took out of the secret compartment there a seed pearl barely bigger than a grain of sand on a thin wire. Finally he reached up into the top of his left cheek and pulled out a thin blue crystal wrapped in silver wire. He had stored it there in water-proof gum that stuck it firmly to his mouth.

Yes, people would say he was paranoid, but it seemed to have paid off.

He tied all the necklaces around his neck, and then took off his tunic. There were two pipes covered with grates at the bottom of his cell. One of them pumped liquid in and the other took it out again. It was to make sure the prisoners got enough oxygen in their cells, he guessed. Zedar stuffed the tunic over the pipe that pumped liquid into his bubble and held it there. Slowly, very slowly, the pink goo began to filter out of his cell. The bubble began to deflate like a tired balloon.

It was working! He put his foot on the tunic to keep the pipe clogged and then stood up. His head was now above the liquid. He reached up, grabbed the soggy cell wall, and tore it.

Without the pressure behind it, the cell wall burst like wet paper. He slid out with the rest of the goo as Dagoru and Sorion both sprang to their feet. They were huddled around a table watching something on a seeing dish.

"What the-!" Dagoru yelled and Zedar jumped to his feet. Sorion readied his magic, a look of intense anger etched on his face.

"No you don't" Zedar bellowed and whipped out his pearl on a string. He whispered the key word and a dazzling beam of light shot from it, blinding anyone who saw it directly. Sorion shrieked in rage and fell to the floor, eyes streaming.

Dagoru was striding across the room. She raised both of her swords to strike at him, but Zedar had pulled out his blue crystal. He shouted the magic word and it lengthened into a staff which he swung up to block her. The scimitars struck the crystal staff and one of them shattered. The other sent a small shock of magic traveling up Dagoru's sword, making it sting her hand. She dropped it and Zedar conked her over the head with his staff. She slumped to the floor unconscious.

He stood there panting for a second. Wow, did he really do that? Did he just dispatch two of the sages in thirty seconds? That was amazing! He was like zap, bam, pow, Game over evil minions!

He shrunk his staff back down to a crystal and put it on his neck again. Then he took his braided chain and activated its charm. It lengthened until he had a very long coil of unbreakable chain. He trussed up Dagoru neatly with one end and shoved her in the corner. Sorion was a little harder though.

"Damn you! Damn you!" he screamed as he thrashed around on the floor, still blind "May Gannondorf feast on your intestines!"

"He's evil, but he's not a re-dead." Zedar said and grabbed Sorion's wrist "Also, he happens to be an idiotic teenager."

He stopped struggling. Zedar quickly tied him up before he started again. Then Sorion started laughing.

"You Fool!" he giggled "Fool! You have no idea what has happened!"

"You're right, being stuck in a bubble does make you a little behind the times" he said good naturedly. Sorion was just blowing steam.

"Look in the dish" Sorion smiled savagely "And you will see that my true master has arrived at last!"

The seeing dish! Zedar raced over to the table. By the Goddesses! Linnet had black tentacles shooting out of her back! Three of them were wrapped around Rebecca's neck and they lifted her off the floor! This was very bad!

Then Rebecca raised her arm. She fired something into Linnet's face which exploded into whirlwind. Linnet dropped her and flailed wildly at the winds that encased her head. Rebecca staggered back from the spluttering sorceress and blocked a swing from Maurice's broadsword.

Zedar gasped. That breast plate, that weapon! Maurice was using Gannondorf's armor and sword! But that was impossible, only Gannondorf could wield his own sword.

Sorion lay giggling on the floor. "See? I told you! Lord Gannondorf is back! He'll crush you and that pitiful Bearer!"

"Quite enough out of you" Zedar said calmly and kicked Sorion in the head. It rebounded off the wall and was silent. Zedar was breathing hard. He had to get out of here and help Rebecca! Well he knew one thing that would help. He picked up Dagoru's sword and walked towards the sage's cells.

--

Rebecca warily circled Gannondorf. Rebecca knew that his armor was weak on the sides and where the legs met the body. All she had to do was wait for an opening and- Gannondorf whipped his sword around, aiming to decapitate. NOW! She ducked, rolled, and came up, bringing the sword up along his side.

"AIEEEE" she screamed in pain as several sharp things embedded themselves in her back. She had turned her back on Linnet too long! The sharpened tentacles of magic twisted deeper into her flesh. She gritted her teeth and used her green magic. She teleported three feet away making sure her back was to the dungeon door.

"This is the end of the road for you!" Linnet said triumphantly. Rebecca was shaking badly. Oh man, she couldn't take another hit like that! The tentacles all raced forward. Rebecca tried to put her shield up but it failed. Not enough magic! She closed her eyes. This was the end!

… um, the end? Not the end?

Rebecca squinted and flinched when she saw that the black spears were maybe a half an inch from her face. They were trembling and suddenly they shot back three feet. They shot back another five feet. Suddenly they disappeared all together.

"What- What's happening!" she screeched. She thrust her arms forward, like casting a spell. She tried chanting something under her breath. When that failed she looked up in alarm at the door. "The prisoners! MY POWERS!" she wailed. Then she looked at Rebecca terrified.

No powers, just the way Rebecca liked it.

Rebecca took a shaky step forward. The voice must have done something, because the bleeding from her back was slowing down. She was still lightheaded from all the blood loss though.

At the second step forward, Linnet bolted. "Not on your life!" Rebecca shouted and reached for her seed shooter. But before she could even touch it, a sword went whistling through the air. It bit deep into Linnet's side and she went down with a crash.

Gannondorf walked slowly to Linnet's side. "Please…" she whimpered as blood pooled around her.

"As new King of Hyrule, I don't need Queen Linnet" he said coldly. He wrenched his sword out of Linnet and she screamed in pain. Rebecca finally loaded the shooter as Gannondorf raised his sword for a finishing blow. She shot a seed at him and the sword clattered out of his hand.

"How could you!" Rebecca demanded shakily "How could you kill one of your own henchmen?!"

"Don't be sanctimonious with me, Bearer." Gannondorf growled. "You were about to kill her yourself. "

She couldn't deny that. She lowered the gun and leaned back against the wall. Why the hell did she do that? Why save Linnet? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Gannondorf turned to face her. "I have no need for a sorceress, either. I can feel my old powers returning to me." He said and put his hands in front of him. A ball of dark energy slowly bloomed in his hands. He smiled at Rebecca wickedly "I'll serve first, shall I?"

Not Ping Pong again! Rebecca didn't think she was up to launching the ball back to him. Did she have any magic left? Yes, just enough for one more spell. She sheathed her sword and concentrated on Gannondorf. She better make this good.

He fired it at her. "And… NOW" she warped forward and to the left and the ball struck the prison doors. The black energy fizzled and seemed to go out. There was a pause. Then a loud bang and a roar came from the doors and they disintegrated into dust.

"We're free!" someone shouted. Four figures raced out of the smoke.

"By the goddesses, what's happening?"

"There he is, Get him!" Junior roared. It was the sages, they were free! Then she saw Zedar come out of the room. Oh crap, he was not going to want to see his sister dying on the floor, no matter how evil she was.

"Zedar, over here!" She called "Let the Sages get Gannondorf, you can help me-"

She had no idea what she was going to say, but she didn't get to finish her sentence. Another explosion rocked the room and the three sages were sent flying. Both Rebecca and Zedar were knocked to their knees. Gannondorf was left standing in a crater, unscathed. "You really think just three sages can bind me? Three weak sages at that!" he started to laugh again, and then suddenly stopped.

"And on top of that" He smiled widely and walked towards Rebecca and Zedar. "All the pieces of tri-force are here! How kind of you to bring them all to one place." they scrambled back franticly until they hit the wall. Gannondorf stood over them, took off his gauntlet, and showed them the back of his hand.

The tri-force piece on his hand pulsed with golden light. Rebecca looked at her own hand. It responded with its own light, and then faded away completely. What happened! It was gone! She looked up again and all three pieces of the tri-force were joined above Ganondorf's head.

He reached up and the tri-force came to rest in his hands. "Once again I have the tri-force! Once again will I rule this land with an iron fist! HYRULE IS MINE!"

"No… No…" Zedar moaned. He was frozen with shock and terror. Rebecca looked up into Gannondorf's horrible face. She realized that it had changed, that it was really Gannondorf's face and no longer Maurice's. It was even more frightening than when she fought his body, with flaming orange hair, deep green skin and large red eyes.

Those eyes! Once again those horrible red eyes stabbed into her own. Yet just as they were terrifying they also seemed familiar.

"The Mural… That was you in the mural!" those eyes that had stared up from the misty purple background surrounded by strange monsters! What else was on the mural?

"Too late." Gannondorf lowered his arms so the tri-force was level with his chest. They started glowing red instead of golden, and a ball of energy started forming in the center. "The last line of Hyrule will die, and I will become its new ruler."

"NO!" Rebecca screamed defiance. She had unsheathed her sword. Now she understood exactly what she had to do! With one lung she thrust herself forward and sunk the sword right into the middle of the tri-force.

It turned golden again. Gannondorf looked livid "What have you done…" Rebecca was startled at the weakness of his voice, and apparently so was Gannondorf. He looked down and saw that not only was the sword thrust through the tri-force, but had also sunk about six inches into his chest. "You… how… impossible."

He tipped and fell backwards. The sword still in him and the tri-force now parallel to the floor. It changed color gain, and glowed bright white. It shot a beam of light, through the ceiling, out of the castle, calling something.

And the world blinked.